This week in 1965
1 I’ll Never Find Another You The Seekers
2 Game of Love Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
3 Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood The Animals
4 You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ The Righteous Brothers
5 Tired Of Waiting For You The Kinks
6 Keep Searchin’ Del Shannon
7 The Special Years Val Doonican
8 It Hurts So Much Jim Reeves
9 Funny How Love Can Be Ivy League
10 It’s Not Unusual Tom Jones
• There’s some dispute as to where ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’ sits in the UK top ten selling singles of 1965 list – some sources say second (behind Ken Dodd’s ‘Tears’ and ahead of The Beatles’ ‘Help!), others place it as far down as seventh.
But there’s no disputing the fact that at this side of the world the song kick-started a lasting love affair with Australian folk-pop band The Seekers that would see a string of UK hits, including three chart-toppers.
‘I’ll Never Find Another You’ was the first song written for the Seekers by Tom Springfield (brother of the famous Dusty).
He would go on to write many more hits for the Aussie foursome, including ‘A World Of Our Own’, the 1.75 million-selling ‘The Carnival Is Over’, and ‘Georgy Girl’, the group’s highest charting single in the US.
• Number 7 was as good as it would get for Val Doonican’s
‘The Special Years’ in 1965. But the Waterford man did enjoy great success in the UK during the sixties. At its height, his TV series – The Val Doonican Show – attracted 20 million viewers.
‘The Special Years’ was one of five UK top ten hits for Doonican but he never made it to number one in either the UK or Irish singles charts. He did however reach the number one spot in the UK album charts, with ‘Val Doonican Rocks, But Gently’ in 1967.
The Irish man probably took great pleasure from the fact that the album ended the long reign at the top of the charts of one of the greatest albums of all time – The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.
• Our number 10 entry, ‘It’s Not Unusual’ was on a month-long chart journey to give a then unknown Tom Jones his first UK No. 1 when this chart was released in 1965. Jones’s regular keyboard player was absent for the recording session, so drummer Chris Slade (later AC/DC) ran across the street to a coffee house, and recruited the unknown Reginald Dwight, who would later adopt the stage name Elton John, to play keys on the recording. – Jim Hayes